Japan's SBI Group is teaming up with crypto infrastructure provider Mesh Connect and Money Forward on a digital asset joint venture.
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The JV, to be set up this year, is designed to facilitate crypto purchases, transfers, and payments in Japan through API connectivity and will also work on developing on-chain payment infrastructure.
SBI Group will bring its huge financial services infrastructure and expertise in regulatory compliance while Mesh offers API-based connectivity infrastructure and products. As a Mesh shareholder, Money Forward will participate in management support.
The venture will focus on seamless account connectivity and digital asset transfers between crypto asset exchanges, wallets and other services; streamlined procedures for purchasing, transferring and using digital assets; and infrastructure services enabling tokenised assets and digital payments for financial institutions and enterprises.
SBI has been stepping up its involvement in the blockchain and digital asset environment. It leads a major consortium launching regulated, 24/7 tokenised equity trading in Japan and internationally.
This year, it has also led an investment round in Temple Digital Group, a New York-based outfit building trading infrastructure on the Canton Network blockchain, and joined a round for Singapore-based stablecoin payments outfit dtcpay.